This weblog is dedicated to the Goddess and to saving the planet -- by gently replacing God the Father with God the Mother by the year 2035. Too simplistic? Nope, I don't think so. Female deities are role models for unconditional love. Violent sky/war gods are dangerous, to men as well as women. People are biologically programmed to need religion of one kind or another. (BTW, "thea"=Goddess, "theo"=god)

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

I'm starting a new sacred organization. I need a name. The members will discuss and hear talks on “What Would a Healthy Mother Do?”

Every Sunday we’ll chew the fat about prickly situations we’ve all gotten ourselves into – situations we didn’t deal with because we didn’t know HOW to deal.

For each situation we’ll ask “What would a healthy mother do?” Could I have done the same? What did I do instead? What kinda rocks fell on my head because I did what I did? What would the upshot have been if I’d done what a healthy mother would do? In this situation, does living in a war-god society prevent me from acting like a healthy mother? How so?

First, we’ll all eat some scrumptious snack food (the Goddess wants us to enjoy our senses, remember? Besides, sharing food makes people feel happy about each other). Then we’ll plunk ourselves down in a circle -- maybe in chairs, maybe on pillows on the floor. Then, with soft music playing in the background, we’ll discuss the questions above.

If you have any good ideas for a name for this group, let me know. So far, I’m not quite satisfied with my list:

O Congregation of the Mother ModelO Gathering of the Great Guiding Mama GoddessO Great Mama, Here We Come!

Also, if you have a war-god church building anywhere in southern Maine you’d like to dedicate to us, give me a jingle. Of course we'll have most of our services outdoors, but once the snow starts we might vote to move inside.

Mother Goddesses make better role models than Jesus. Why? Because while none of us has ever watched Jesus with our very own eyes, we’ve all watched healthy mothers going about their daily business.

So when you wonder what’s “right” behavior in any situation, all ya hafta do is ask yourself, “What would a healthy mother do?”

For example, if you’re feeling envious of some dude, you can say, “Okay, if a healthy mother’s kid’s having a great time and she’s not, does the mother get envious? No way! She automatically forgets her own troubles, grins, and starts clapping for the kid.”

With your own eyes you’ve seen this. We’re not talking here about some pretend dude invented by the war gods. ______________Thnx to lovleah for the fine foto

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

In his book Prehistoric Figurines (Routledge 2005), Dougy Bailey tells a story about a dude in Romania who was widening his garden when he stumbled across a stunning hoard of ancient clay figurines. Later, after archaeologists had torn up his entire yard, they decided it had once been a town belonging to the “A3 phase” of the Neolithic Cucuteni culture (2nd half of 5th millennium BC).

These figurines came in two sets of six each. Set #1 looked like the dude on the left: wide shoulders, legs apart, penises prominent, and just a dab of body décor.

The second set looked like the dudette on the right : narrow shoulders, legs hugged together, breasts, and barrel-loads of body beautification. This delightful dozen were all six- to eight inches high (14.0 – 20.0 cm).

But here’s the strange thing: all twelve have breasts. On all but one (the dudette in the picture) these breasts are little round, smushed pellets of clay stuck onto the chest. On the twelfth figure, however, the breasts are long, thin, and cut into the chest.

So Dougy Bailey (living in the daddy-god world he does), scratches his head and asks: “Why do the ‘male’ ones have the same size and shape of breasts as do the supposedly female ones?”

Answer: Because, Dougy, in Guiding-Goddess cultures, breasts are symbols of nurturance. And both males and females were expected to be nurturers. Both were raised to be nurturers, and rewarded for being nurturers.

So it’s only fitting, symbolically speaking, to show both men and women with breasts (symbolizing nurturing savvy) of the same size (= same capacity to be nurturingly savvy).

In Guiding-Goddess lands, oxytocin-high mamas were the role models – for men as well as for non-mother women. Boys learned not only to be studley macho men, but also to adore all men and women around them the sane way oxytocin-high mamas adore their infants.

Men learned to nurture, in other words, by watching mamas under the spell of the birthing hormone oxytocin.

And don’t you dare think this made Guiding-Goddess men into mama’s boys. After all, who could leap in a single bound over the backs of bulls? (I’ll give you a clue: it ain’t us).

OK, you’ve had it up to here with the freaking, froogie Fundies. You’ve sold your house, packed your bags, and now you’re sitting on your front stoop staring at your world globe (you have one of those ones that stand on a post), and you’re grazing over it looking for a new Fundie-less country to call your own. Where do you go? Who’s the most Fundie-less of us all?

Try Iceland. Yup. Outta 34 countries, Iceland has the highest percentage of people believing in evolution. Next are Denmark and Sweden. If the northern climes are a tad cool for ya, fourth is France.

And where’s the good ol’ US of A? Try next to the bottom. Above Turkey. Country 33 outa 34 [Hides head in shame.]

Too bad the researchers left out South Africa, Canada, and Australia. 'Course adding them would drop the US three steps lower on the list.

GO HERE to read the article the chart came from, Why Do Some People Resist Science? by Paul Bloom and Deena Skolnick Weisberg. Also, the chart's bigger in the article, so you can read it better there. The blurb under it reads "Public Acceptance of Evolution in 34 Countries, 2005." Blue bars = "True," white bars = "Not Sure," and red bars = "False."_________________Thnx to fleamarketstudio for the foto of the fundie suitcase

Monday, May 28, 2007

If you haven’t already, you’ll want to lay your hands on a copy of Jacques Cauvin’s The Birth of the Gods and the Origins of Agriculture, 2002, Cambridge U. Press.

Archaeologist Jacques Cauvin, who studied the Near Eastern Neolithic for twenty years, was crystal clear: a Great Mother Goddess reigned supreme in this area during the entire Neolithic (which lasted in the Near East from about 10,000 to about 5000 BC):

“Throughout the total duration of the Neolithic across the whole of the Near and Middle East, a unique ‘ideology’ is found …, organized around two key symbols: one, female, has already taken human form. Can she perhaps be derived from the first female statuettes known in the Upper Paleolithic of Europe and spread as far as Siberia? [many Paleolithic people too created goddess figurines].”

Cauvin is firm: this is not just any old goddess, but a Great Guiding Goddess:

“[S]he was not a ‘fertility symbol’ but a genuine mythical personality, conceived as a supreme being and universal mother, in other words a goddess who crowned a religious system which one could describe as ‘female monotheism’ in the sense that all the rest remained subordinated to her” (Cauvin 2002: 31).

Hm. I suspect the French have finally had enough of the slimy little English-speaking archaeologists and theologians tripping over themselves to deny the ancient prehistoric Great Goddess._______Thnx to Stewart Bremmer for the foto

Friday, May 25, 2007

In only three days, a $27 million "Creation Museum" opens in the plucky little town of Petersburg, Kentucky.

In it, visitors will see happy prehistoric kiddies cavorting with dinosaurs, and will be told by the museum's creators, the "Answers in Genesis Ministry," that that’s the way things really were in days of yore.

Never mind that modern scientists – you know: the dudettes and dudes who brought us electric lights and modern medicine? – say that dinos and homo sapiens sapiens were separated by, oh, only a few zillion years.

Thursday, May 24, 2007

How much of a love are you? After reading the questions below, and with 10 being max, rate yourself from 1 to 10:

1. You know the personal peace Goddess brings. Do you reach out and put others in touch with it?

If so, score 3-1/3 points.

2. You know the evidence that centering societies around a Great Guiding Goddess* brings peace, non-violence, and equality and wealth for all. Do you nevertheless hide your little Goddess light under a barrel?

If so, score 0. If not, score 3-1/3 points.

3. You know the only way to “save” the world may be to bring back a Guiding Goddess. Do you pass this info on to others?

If so, score 3-1/3 points.

How’dja do? If you flunked, it’s ok. I didn’t do so hot myself. But let’s talk about why we didn’t (do so hot, that is). ___________________________* By “Great Guiding Goddess” I mean a deity who births the universe and everything in it, and who also serves as the major guide for human behavior.

Monday, May 21, 2007

They're rolling off the presses like hot cakes! Another anti-religion book’s out: Christopher Hitchens’ God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.

Of course these anti-religion writers are really railing not against the Goddess but the daddy gods. The evidence is pretty hefty: when we worshipped a Great Guiding Goddess we were peaceful, courageous, egalitarian risk-takers.

Sunday, May 20, 2007

In HER ARTICLE “Peace Culture,” Elise Boulding shoots the breeze about “the persistence of social images of … peace, the ineradicable longing for … peace, and the numbers of social movements working for a more … peaceful world.”

Jeesh! With this ton ‘o stuff pumping on the side of Peace, why aren’t we swamped with Peace?

Answer: Because the world is swamped with War Gods: Jehovah, Allah, Yahweh and Vishnu now control 68% of the globe (go HERE to see a pie chart of this sad truth). No way we’ll have peace until we dump these dudley dudes._________________________Thnx to Dimitry for the foto

Saturday, May 19, 2007

Whew! Last night I cracked open the latest edition of SageWoman* (No. 72) and found this Hot little letter to the Editor:

“I have looked but don’t seem to find writing in SageWoman that connects Goddess women to the world we live in. The writings in SageWoman beg the questions of why don’t we see Goddess temples in our neighborhoods, why women are routinely abused and murdered by men, and why 18,000 Americans die each year because of no health care.

"Does the Goddess of SageWoman want us to be blind and deaf?

Snip

“We have meditated, visualized, intuited, and mused ad nausea. Now we need to help our Goddess stop the suffering of all humans.

Snip

“It is my hope that SageWoman will get out of the closet regarding speaking out about the harmful nature of Christianity, how it totally destroyed all that is Goddess, and how it devastates women and children today. Come on out! You will find that you are not alone.

“Artemis Oakstone”

You go, Artemis. Go, girl!

My personal opinion? For what it is, SageWoman turns out a great little magazine. But what we need now for the Goddess Movement is a brand new activist journal.

Whadda you think? _______________________*The leading North American Goddess-Movement rag. Artemis' letter is on pages 88-89.

Monday, May 14, 2007

GOOD NEWS for mental health! An old but previously unidentified mental disorder has been recognized by the world psychiatric community.

Although plaguing humanity for over 2000 years , "ChristoPhrenia" has only recently been entered into the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV).

Suffered by millions over the past two millennia, this psychosis is characterized by the following behaviors:

(1) Sado-masochism. A constant compulsion to have someone doing ugly things to you -- like sticking giant hatpins in you and stepping on your eyeballs (or, conversely, you feel the need to be doing the sticking and stepping on somebody else).

(2) A whopping dose of “authoritarian personality.” Unless you constantly have another person punishing and rewarding you, you wither away and die on the vine.

(3a) An outrageous lack of ego, or …

(3b) … An ego built like a mack truck. Some ChristoPhrenics have so little ego it’s difficult to distinguish them from giant, flapping noodles. Others have so much it’s like watching a human-shaped cement block moving down the street.

(4) Associated physical complaints: Arthritic knees contracted as early as the toddling years; from prostrating oneself to one’s ‘deity,’ to whom one is taught to feel inferior, unworthy, and downright filthy in front of.

Although no known pagan has ever suffered from ChristoPhrenia, almost 99% of Christians possess this psychosis to one degree or another.

So please! Moms and dads: don’t let your kids talk to Christians, let alone play with them. Teach them early how to avoid ChristoPhrenia (via avoidance of all things Christian).

Identifying ChristoPhrenics. To learn more about ChristoPhrenia, go to THE CHRISTIAN DOMESTIC DISCIPLINE website. CAUTION: if you have a weak stomach, hypertension or bad nerves, please consider avoiding this site. It’s full of things like how, when you’ve been bad, to get your husband to paddle you with a kitchen spatula (and since their god Yahweh assures Christians they’re bad 24-7, we’re talking quite a tripout with household kitchen utensils, here).

Sunday, May 13, 2007

This is for the mothers who have sat up all night with sick toddlers in their arms, wiping up barf laced with Oscar Mayer wieners and cherry Kool-Aid saying, "It's okay honey, Mommy's here."

Who have sat in rocking chairs for hours on end soothing crying babies who can't be comforted.

This is for all the mothers who show up at work with spit-up in their hair and milk stains on their blouses and diapers in their purse.

For all the mothers who run carpools and make cookies and sew Halloween costumes. And all the mothers who don't.

This is for the mothers who gave birth to babies they'll never see. And the mothers who took those babies and gave them homes.

This is for the mothers whose priceless art collections are hanging on their refrigerator doors.

And for all the mothers who froze their buns on metal bleachers at football or soccer games instead of watching from the warmth of their cars, so that when their kids asked, "Did you see me, Mom?" they could say, "Of course, I wouldn't have missed it for the world," and mean it.

This is for all the mothers who yell at their kids in the grocery store and swat them in despair when they stomp their feet and scream for ice cream before dinner. And for all the mothers who count to ten instead, but realize how child abuse happens.

This is for all the mothers who sat down with their children and explained all about making babies. And for all the (grand) mothers who wanted to, but just couldn't find the words.

This is for all the mothers who go hungry, so their children can eat. For all the mothers who read "Goodnight, Moon" twice a night for a year. And then read it again. "Just one more time."

This is for all the mothers who taught their children to tie their shoelaces before they started school. A nd for all the mothers who opted for Velcro instead.

This is for all the mothers who teach their sons to cook and their daughters to sink a jump shot.

This is for every mother whose head turns automatically when a little voice calls "Mom?" in a crowd, even though they know their own offspring are at home -- or even away at college.

This is for all the mothers who sent their kids to school with stomach aches assuring them they'd be just FINE once they got there, only to get calls from the school nurse an hour later asking them to please pick them up. Right away.

This is for mothers whose children have gone astray, who can't find the words to reach them.

This is for all the step-mothers who raised another woman's child or children, and gave their time, attention, and love... sometimes totally unappreciated!

For all the mothers who bite their lips until they bleed when their 14-year-olds dye their hair green.

For all the mothers of the victims of recent school shootings, and the mothers of those who did the shooting.

For the mothers of the survivors, and the mothers who sat in front of their TVs in horror, hugging their child who just came home from school, safely.

This is for all the mothers who taught their children to be peaceful, and now pray they come home safely from a war.

What makes a good Mother anyway? Is it patience? Compassion? Broad hips?

The ability to nurse a baby, cook dinner, and sew a button on a shirt, all at the same time? Or is it in her heart? Is it the ache you feel when you watch your son or daughter disappear down the street, walking to school alone for the very first time? The jolt that takes you from sleep to dread, from bed to crib at 2 A.M. to put your hand on the back of a sleeping baby? Th e panic, years later, that comes again at 2 A.M. when you just want to hear their key in the door and know they are safe again in your home? Or the need to flee from wherever you are and hug your child when you hear news of a fire, a car accident, a child dying?

The emotions of motherhood are universal and so our thoughts are for young mothers stumbling through diaper changes and sleep deprivation...

Which translates intoputting all the Earth’s women on pedastals, letting them use their Goddess-given wisdom to decide when and how many babies to birth (so the Earth doesn’t become swamped with human-flesh the way it is now).

Which means loving every single person on earth the way a healthy mother loves her children – so you’d sooner die than grow rich selling chemicals you know cause cancer and climate change. __________________________Thnx to Tove Tenhaug for the foto

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

This web site is designed to spread the vicious truth about the Bible. … The so called “God” of the Bible makes Osama Bin Laden look like a Boy Scout. This God, according to the Bible, is directly responsible for … mass-murders, rapes, pillage, plunder, slavery, child abuse and killing, not to mention the killing of unborn children. I have included references to the Biblical passages, so grab your Bible and follow along.

SNIP

I know most Christians believe God is a good and loving god, and [that he] wants people to do good things. I believe most people want to do good things and behave morally. I also believe that many Christians haven’t really read the Bible, or have just read certain passages in church. This is understandable, as the Bible is hard to read due to its archaic language and obscure references. Also many priests and preachers don’t like to read certain passages in the Bible because they present a message of hate not love.

As always, fabulous readers, reminding you that Christians, Muslims and Jews are gorgeous, adorable people. Why wouldn’t they be? They’re the Goddess’s children. It’s the “religions” they’ve been hypnotized into that are eating away the earth and everything on._____________________Thanx to Helena Kolesnik for the foto

Monday, May 07, 2007

Anyone else caught the BBC Robin Hood bug? I’m nuts about this series. No, literally -- nuts. When I discovered yesterday it was only 13 shows long, I almost teared up. But then I found out BBC’s doing a second series. Hubba! Hubba! Hubba!

As a Goddess Lover, here’s why you need to catch this show:

First, Marian (Lucy Griffiths) plays a very believable Goddess [See earlier blogs about how Marian in the RH legends is actually the Great Goddess]. She deeply loves the people of Nottingham. At night, she even rides around wearing a mask rescuing people. She keeps Her feet in two worlds -- Forest and Castle, working as a communication link between the Goddess Forest and the male-God Castle.

Second, one of Robin’s ‘men’ is actually -- surprise, surprise -- a dudette: her name is Djaq, and she’s a 20-something Muslim woman, wears pants and a leather vest, and is a talented Saracen scientist.

Third, in this series, you getta bask in Goddess Land 24/7. Robin et al. don’t even do huts or caves. They’re magic men, out in the forest all the time, lounging around on fallen logs circling a campfire, on a springy leaf floor. Unless, of course, they're routing the evil Sheriff of Nottingham.

This is definitely a series made with us Goddess People in mind.

__________The fotos come from the BBC Robin Hood website. They are, from top to bottom, Marian; Robin; Djaq; Marian again; and Sir Guy of Gisborne (I know I'm supposed to like Robin best, but Guy's a hunk!).

Thursday, May 03, 2007

My friend Jan put me on to something: She thinks the fairytale Rumpelstiltskin is another coded message from our Great-Goddess ancestors. Although these ancestors were forced on pain of death (or worse) to give up the Mother for the Daddy, they tried to hide messages in fairy tales for us about the Goddess -- so someday we could resurrect Her. But what is the message of Rumpelstiltskin?

In a nutshell, Rumpelstiltskin is about a dwarf who spins straw into gold for a maiden to meet the demands of the king. He spins, though, on condition that she give him her first child or else guess his name. She discovers his name, and he destroys himself in a fit of rage by stomping his right foot into the Earth so hard that his entire leg is drawn into the Earth. He then grabs his left leg, and pulls so hard that he “tore himself in two” (from The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Pantheon Books).

I think the Earth here is the Great Goddess, and the maiden Her daughter. Her baby is us, the human race. And I think ol’ Rumpel is none other than the Daddy God himself, Mr. Jehovah (or, actually, ‘JHVH’).

So what is the message?

I’m not sure.

Is it “Just wait long enough and Daddy’s rages will finally destroy him”?

Or could it be “Just keep seeking info about Daddy and you’ll eventually break him”?

Or could it be this: “The Daddy’s not a god, he’s just a name. He keeps his name secret ‘cause if you’d discover it, you’d see he’s nothing but a big bagga wind.” (Daddy God’s name is really a big, fat secret. All you’ll find in the original Old Testament texts are the consonants “YHWH” or “JHVH,” which stands for the “incommunicable name of God.” For more on this, go HERE).

TWO POINTS:

1. When the maiden/queen snoops around, she finds Rumpel’s house near “A high mountain” at “The end of the forest” … “Where the fox and the hare bid each other goodnight” (symbolic of peace, as Jan pointed out). Also all symbolic of Goddess.

2. Transformation is everywhere in this little tale. The maiden is the daughter of a miller – who transforms grain into meal. Rumple transforms straw into gold, and later grain/yeast into bread and beer: When the maiden’s messenger finds him, Rumpel is “Hopping on one leg” around a fire and singing:

“To-day I bake, to-morrow I brew,The next I’ll have the young Queen’s child. Ha! Glad am I that no one knewThat Rumpelstiltskin I am styled.”

"The Beltane Fire Festival celebrates the heritage of Gaelic history, and marks the blossoming of spring and fertility. The name Beltane is thought to have derived from a Celtic word meaning "bright fire"; the fire represents the sun burning away the winter darkness, and the community pass through it to be purified and circle it for good luck." From The Scotsman

_____________Thnx to The Scotsman and photographer David Moir for the foto: "The Beltane Fire Festival [in Edinburgh, Scotland] played host to 150,000 spectators over the past 20 years."

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About Me

Athana lives in southern Maine, at the foot of a forested hill, at the nexus of country and city. She has degrees in archaeology and anthropology. Her spirituality is nature-based.
Her book *SWITCHING TO GODDESS: HUMANITY’S TICKET TO THE FUTURE* is available on most online bookstores. Her second book, *BREAKING THE MOTHER GOOSE CODE,* was published February 27, 2015. Look for it at an online bookstore near you.